McAfee Survey:70 Percent of Teens Admit to Hiding Online Activities and Behaviour From Their Parents

A survey concerning on-line by the net security software developer McAfee shows that the majority teens don´t need their oldsters to grasp that websites they visit.

70 percent of the 2,017 teenagers who took part in the study indicated that they "hide their online behavior" from their parents compared to 2010, where 45 percent of teenagers have hidden their online behavior from a parent.

43 percent of teens have accessed simulated violence online, 32 percent visited pornographic sites, 15 percent said they have hacked into social networks and 9 percent revealed that they hacked someone´s e-mail account.

"This is a generation that is so comfortable with technology that they are surpassing their parents in understanding and getting away with behaviors that are putting their safety at risk," said McAfee online safety expert Stanley Holditch in the statement.

Interestingly, parents don't necessarily think that their children are doing anything wrong on the Web. In fact, McAfee, which surveyed a total of 2,017 people, found that about half of all parents believe their teens tell them everything they're doing online, CNET News.Com reported.

Nearly half of parents believe their teens tell them everything they do online and insist they are in control when it comes to monitoring their teen’s online behaviors.

One other note from the McAfee study: 62 percent teens have witnessed cruel behavior online, and 23 percent have been targets of cyberbullying. However, just 10 percent of parents believe their teens have been cyberbullied.

The survey also indicated that 43 percent of teenagers had accessed simulated violence online, 36 percent sexual topics online, and 32 percent nude content or pornography online, "despite their awareness of online dangers."

It also found that 15 percent of teens had hacked a social network account, 16 percent acknowledged looking up school test answers on their smartphones, and 20 percent ended friendships as a result of a social network account.

Here are stated top 10 tricks that teens are using in order to avoid and fool their parents about their online activity:

1. Clearing the browser history (53%)
2. Close/minimize browser when parent walked in (46%)
3. Hide or delete IMs or videos (34%)
4. Lie or omit details about online activities (23%)
5.  Use a computer your parents don’t check (23%)
6.  Use an internet-enabled mobile device (21%)
7. Use privacy settings to make certain content viewable only by friends (20%)
8. Use private browsing modes (20%)
9. Create private email address unknown to parents (15%)
10. Create duplicate/fake social network profiles (9%)

Related key findings included:

• Teens spend more time online than their parents think. On average, teens spend about five hours a day online; while parents only think their kids spend an average of three hours a day online. Nearly 10% of teens (10.3%) spend more than 10 hours a day online
• Parents are blind to how much teens check social networks. Teens are glued to their news feeds with 60% of social network users checking their accounts daily and 41% checking their accounts constantly. Only 48% of parents think their teens check their accounts daily, and only 22% believe their teens check their accounts constantly.
• Despite the rise of smartphones Generation Z goes online old school. Generation Z spends more time online via laptops (37.35%) and desktops (29.8%) compared to smartphones (13.48%) and tablets (5%).
• Teens don’t think online friends are dangerous strangers. 12% of teens reported meeting someone offline that they only knew through online interactions.
• Foursquare and check-in sites dwindling. Facebook was the most popular site with 89.5% of teens using it, followed by Twitter (48.7%), Google+ (41.5%), Tumblr (33%), Pintrest (20%), 4chan (23%), and MySpace (18%). Foursquare and location-based sites were the least popular among teens (12.2%).
• 4chan and Tumblr are on the rise. Tumblr and 4chan networks are increasing in popularity with a distinct divide between who prefers each site. Tumblr is more popular with teen females (40.9%) and 4chan is more popular with teen males (29.8%). As popular as these networks are become, many parents are unaware of their existence and their teen’s usage. Only 13% of parents believe their teens are active on 4chan or other online image boards or discussion boards, and only 16% of parents believe their teens are active on Tumblr.
• Teens stalk rather than share. Half of teens claim their social network time is spent mostly observing others’ activities, rather than actively posting anything, themselves. 39% describe themselves as more engaged (chatting, posting, etc…) and 6% say they share almost everything.
• When teens do share, parents need to beware. 49% of teens post risky comment on social networks (such as foul language – 39% and hooking up with someone – 10%), with 16.3% of those comments containing information they would not want their parents to know about. 21.5% of teens post photos on social networks, with 7.5% featuring those teens in revealing clothing and 4.1% feature intoxication.
• Nearly two in three teens agree their parents know some of what they do online, but notably, not everything. Two in three teens say their parents don’t need to know everything they do online. In fact, half of teens would actually change their online behavior if they knew their parents were watching.
• Some parents just throw their hands up in defeat. One in three believes their teen to be much more tech-savvy then they are, leaving them feeling helpless to keep up with their teen’s online behaviors. 23% admitting that they were overwhelmed by modern technologies and just hope for the best. With just as many claiming they don’t have the time or energy to keep up with everything these teens do online.
• Parents don’t think teens look at porn online. Only 12% of parents think their teen’s access pornography online, when 32% of teens have accessed porn intentionally online and 43% of them access it on a weekly basis, if not more frequently. Additionally, 36% of teens have accessed sexual topics online, such as STD’s and issues on pregnancy, with more females than males doing so.
• Cyberbullying is on the rise. 62.1% of all teens have witnessed cruel behavior online and 23.3% have claimed to be targets of cyberbullying, while only 10% of parents believe their teens have been targeted online. Whites are most likely to be targeted (25.3%), as well as 16-17 year olds (26.2%).
• Teens don’t just witness cruel behavior, they join in. Teens have felt social pressure to participate in cyberbullying, with 9.5% of teens actually bullying, and 24.9% posting mean comments.
• Facebook is the new school yard for bullies. 93% of teens who have witnessed cruel behavior online say that majority of cruel online behavior took place on Facebook. Furthermore half of teens have had a negative experience as a result of a social network site. Email was reported as one of the safest online activity with only 6.37% of teens reporting cruel behavior, followed by online forums (9.6%) and Tumblr (10%).